Upslopes and isotopes

SUCCESS postdoc Anja Sundal at UiO has recently started up two new CLIMIT projects that each in its own way may contribute to safe CO2 storage.

The first project was initialized when Anja last year received a UiO Energy grant to visit Eawag/ETH in Zürich to follow up earlier work on isotope-geochemistry in groundwater, an underexplored topic in Nordic countries and potentially very useful in CO2 storage and monitoring schemes.

It turned out that Eawag has developed a mobile mass-spectrometer that measures noble gases and CO2, and the question that arised was if this instrument is suitable for geochemical and quantitative monitoring of subsurface CO2 storage. An application to Gassnova (CLIMIT demo) resulted in a small grant to do a feasibility study, «Monitoring isotope distribution in gas and water for safe storage of CO2 on the Norwegian shelf (ICO2P)». This project is also supported by Statoil.

Anja also has obtained a two year researcher project from the Research Councilside of CLIMIT: «Optimized CO2 storage in sloping aquifers (CO2 Upslope)». This project will challenge some common concepts in reservoir characterization for CO2 storage by re-evaluating proper methods for estimating storage volumes, including enhanced trapping efficiency during migration in sloping aquifers. Collaborating partners are Sintef Digital and GEUS (Denmark).

Rohaldin Miri, who obtained his PhD through SUCCESS (Inject project) in 2015, will be affiliated part-time to the project. Miri now is employed at Petroleum University of Teheran.